The Arabic title malik originated as a positive royal designation

Evidence

The earliest uses of the title are on the whole positive. There were the kings of Kinda and of Hira, known from the literary tradition. The oldest surviving inscription in the Arabic language, an epitaph of 328 c.e. found at Namara, commemorates a “king (malik) of all the Arabs, who wore the diadem… . No king until this time had attained what he had attained.” The last Byzantine emperor to rule over Egypt and the Syrian lands before the advent of Islam, Heraklius, adopted the king-title basileus, in addition to the usual Byzantine title autokrator, to celebrate the Christian victory over the infidel Persians, in particular the recovery of the Holy Land and the Holy City of Jerusalem. The term basileus brought with it an echo of the ancient kings of Israel celebrated in the Bible and of Christ the king. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 524

Categorization

• DEFINE: The oldest Arabic-language inscription (328 CE, Namara) already uses malik for ‘king of all the Arabs’, grounding the term’s earliest attested positive sense.